The House Committee on Natural Resources sent the World Wide Fund’s US branch a demand letter on Monday requesting internal documents for an ongoing investigation that seeks to determine if the US government funded anti-poaching organizations that committed human rights violations. A BuzzFeed investigation revealed that the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the world’s [...]

Human Rights Watch (HRW) filed a submission on Qatar with the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women on Monday in preparation for the committee’s upcoming meeting and review of Qatar’s progress. The committee is charged with monitoring women’s progress in states that signed the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination [...]

The Iowa Supreme Court ruled in favor of the state’s parole board in a juvenile parole case on Friday. In 2010 the US Supreme Court disallowed sentences of life without parole for juveniles convicted of non-homicide crimes in Graham v. Florida. As a result, the Iowa Supreme court decided to resentence Julio Bonilla, who had [...]

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet on Monday called for Venezuelan authorities to investigate the in-custody death of retired navy captain Rafael Acosta Arévalo, who was detained by unidentified armed men on June 21 and brought before a military tribunal June 28. Arévalo’s lawyers and relatives were not made aware of his arrest [...]

On June 27, 2019 during the second Democratic Primary Debate, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders proposed rotating United States Supreme Court Justices with judges from lower federal courts.  This solution was offered in response to the “court packing” occurring under President Trump’s administration, leading to the growing conservatism of the Court.  Additionally, the nomination and appointment [...]

On Monday, a new law takes effect that will have an impact on public school students within the state of Illinois. Senate Bill 28 requires a school day to include at least five clock hours of instruction. The Bill “provides that for a pupil of legal school age and in kindergarten or any of grades [...]

Illinois passed House Bill 345 today, making it illegal for anyone to sell or provide tobacco cigarettes or other tobacco products to people under the age of 21. The so-called “Tobacco 21” bill is one of several new laws that take effect today, the start of the new state fiscal year. Businesses who do not [...]

US Federal District Judge Dolly M. Gee of the Central District of California ordered the federal government and plaintiffs of a class action suit to mediation Friday to remedy conditions at migrant children detention centers. The order comes as part of a class action suit filed on behalf of 80 children currently held in detention [...]

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf signed a new budget bill Friday which included a prohibition on regulation of single-use plastics by municipalities. The bill, SB 712, had the provisions added late Wednesday in an attempt to force the Governor’s hand or risk losing a $34 billion budget. The three paragraph amendment delegates the Independent Fiscal Office [...]

After years of back and forth, France’s Court of Cassation ruled on Friday that artificial life support for Vincent Lambert, a person who has been in a vegetative state since a road accident in 2008, can be terminated. The court’s ruling reverses a previous decision by a Paris Court of Appeal last month, which forced [...]